


Memento Vitae

by Lomonaaeren



Series: Advent Fics 2015 [9]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Romance, visiting graves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-10
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-05 23:12:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5393792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lomonaaeren/pseuds/Lomonaaeren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry and Draco find themselves visiting Dumbledore’s grave at the same time. As their visits become more frequent and then simultaneous, both of them begin to realize something about life after wartime.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Written as an Advent fic for a prompt by bicrim, who asked for _Harry/Draco, school age, that moment when hate turns into something else. I like when they both figure it out at the same time, and are gobsmacked. The title is Latin for “reminder of life.”_ The second part will be posted tomorrow.

“Hello again, sir.”   
  
Harry sat down on the small bench that Professor McGonagall had had set up in front of Dumbledore’s tomb. There were a few vines growing on the huge white thing now, he saw, and he wondered for a second if Dumbledore would resent that. Then he shook his head. He didn’t think so. Dumbledore would probably think of it as part of the next great adventure, instead.   
  
“I don’t know what you can tell me,” Harry whispered. “But I need some advice. Everyone seems to be moving on so much better than I am. Snape’s portrait is even more content than I am.” He hesitated. “And I know I could go and talk to your portrait in McGonagall’s office, sir, but I don’t feel like he’s really  _you_. Even though I know he is.”  
  
The tomb was silent. Harry had to close his eyes and start thinking about what he would have liked Dumbledore to say, instead.  
  
 _Sorry for lying to me? Sorry for not telling me about Grindelwald and the Elder Wand and Ariana?_  
  
Harry breathed slowly out. No, when it came down to it, Dumbledore’s family business was none of his. He was more upset that Dumbledore had never told him about the Horcrux.  
  
“I could have done it,” he whispered. “I could have got used to the idea and walked into the Forest at last. You didn’t have to keep it a secret.”  
  
“What are  _you_ doing here, Potter?”  
  
Harry spun around, the bench grinding painfully against his arse for a second. Malfoy stood a few meters away, staring at him with such an expression of disdain that Harry automatically clenched his teeth.  
  
“Leaving, Your Majesty,” he said, and stood, and brushed a little dust from his robes, and walked in the direction of the school.  
  
“If you’ve been spying on me, Potter—”  
  
“I don’t bloody  _care_ about what you’ve been up to since the war, Malfoy!” Harry called without turning around. “Get that through your bloody head!”  
  
Only when he was inside Hogwarts did it feel as if Malfoy had stopped staring at him, and then only because he was blocked by stone walls. Harry leaned his head against one of those walls and sighed. It felt like he had a second heart in his temples, pounding away.  
  
Part of him did wonder what in the world Malfoy had been doing, visiting Dumbledore’s tomb. But that one  _wasn’t_ any of his business, and he didn’t want to start the stalking and obsession career that he had during the war. Things were different now.  
  
 _They have to be different,_ Harry told himself firmly, and stood up and resumed walking to Gryffindor Tower.   
  
He would just have to figure out different times to visit Dumbledore, times when Malfoy was less likely to be there.  
  
*  
  
Draco glared after Potter for a long moment, and then stared down at the pathetic flower clutched in his hand.  
  
He tried to envision bringing that to Professor Snape’s grave—a tiny one in an out-of-the-way Muggle churchyard, apparently near his mother—and winced. The thought of Potter catching sight of it made Draco want to throw the stupid thing away.  
  
But he hadn’t come here for either of them. Draco looked up at the white and gleaming walls of the tomb, drew a little breath, and moved closer.  
  
“Thanks for what you wanted to do for me,” Draco whispered.   
  
He’d said thanks to so many people since the war—Potter, and Weasley, and Granger, and McGonagall, and Slughorn, and numerous other Hogwarts professors. But he hadn’t said anything to the man who had wanted to save his soul in the very beginning, before Draco had proved he was worth anything.  
  
The man who had wanted to save his soul when Draco was  _trying to kill him_.  
  
Honestly, Draco had no idea how to even start. But he supposed the flower was a good enough beginning.  
  
He put it down in front of the tomb. He had thought about putting it on the wall, but then someone was likely to notice it. Potter wasn’t the only student who made pathetic little pilgrimages to the tomb.   
  
It was a violet. Draco thought it wasn’t really purple, though, more blue, the color of the old man’s eyes. He stood back and spent some more time staring at the tomb.  
  
“I don’t know what you saw in me,” he told Dumbledore. “But thank you.”  
  
He trudged back to Hogwarts with his throat burning from his own words and his cheeks burning from the cold. And, he had to admit, from imagining the way Potter would laugh if he ever heard Draco’s stupid, silly words.  
  
Draco would just have to make sure that Potter never found out.  
  
*  
  
Harry came back to the tomb a few days later, when spring flowers were so bright that they made him feel an aching in his chest. He  _should_ be happy, he knew that. Hell, even if it was almost a year since he’d defeated Voldemort, he ought to be riding the adrenaline high of that for the rest of his life.  
  
But all he could really think about was how Ron and Hermione were together and Harry himself had no one, and Teddy had a godfather and a grandmother but no parents.  
  
And Dumbledore was still dead.  
  
“I suppose I can forgive you for not telling anyone about the Horcrux,” Harry told Dumbledore as he sat on the bench in the sunlight. They had an endless procession of mild days lately, as though whatever controlled the weather around Hogwarts was trying to make up for the last year and the harsh winter.  
  
“It’s just—it could have gone so wrong, you know?” Harry lay back on the bench and stared up at the sky. There was nothing flying there but clouds and crows. “It could have meant that I ended up thinking I needed to duel Voldemort. Or not knowing about the Horcrux at all. If I hadn’t been there when Snape died, if he hadn’t managed to call up the memories, if you had decided to be paranoid and not told  _him_ about them, either…”  
  
Harry trailed off, closing his eyes. Honestly, when he thought about it, it only depressed him. He didn’t want to talk about it. Dumbledore already knew everything he’d say, anyway.  
  
He dozed, and at some point passed into true sleep, something that hadn’t been happening in his bed for the last few nights. When he rolled over and his arm dropped off the side of the bench, Harry woke up with a start.  
  
Only to see Malfoy staring at him from a meter away.  
  
Malfoy went red so suddenly that Harry didn’t think he would need to chase him away. But then Malfoy didn’t hurry off, for some reason. He stood still, looking at Harry as though he was a unicorn instead of his old school rival.  
  
Harry watched him back. He could think of no reason not to. Besides, in a moment reality would reassert itself and Malfoy would leave.  
  
But the silence stretched and stretched and froze them in place, until a crow cawed overhead as it hopped from branch to branch.  
  
Malfoy tossed something white he held in his fist down at the base of the tomb and scarpered. Harry bent to look at it without touching it. It was a flower, something that might have been a daisy or a snowdrop. Harry knew magical plants after seven years of Herbology and the ones that grew in Aunt Petunia’s garden, but he didn’t know random wildflowers.  
  
 _Random wildflowers that Malfoy apparently wanted to give Dumbledore._  
  
Harry shook his head. He honestly didn’t know why Malfoy had stood there and stared instead of demanding that Harry leave, or backing away the minute he saw Harry asleep on the bench and returning at a later time.  
  
But he did know that he didn’t mind it. He actually sat there for a little while, half-hoping Malfoy would come back, before accepting that he wouldn’t and going into Hogwarts.  
  
Despite his nap on the bench, he still slept deeply that night. And the only thing he could really remember about the dream was talking to someone with a blurry face in a field of wildflowers.  
  
*  
  
Draco waited for Potter to say something. To tell everyone at Hogwarts that he was bringing flowers to Dumbledore’s tomb and he had no right to do that, for example. To laugh pointedly at him when they met in the corridors or sat not far from each other in the small NEWT Potions class.  
  
He never did.  
  
Draco finally dared to visit the tomb again almost a week after he’d last been there. He didn’t bring a flower this time, because he’d been practicing a spell that he wanted to use to perfect a gift for Dumbledore. And if he failed at it, well, he had waited until he was sure he was alone this time.  
  
He stood in front of the tomb and stared at the door. It had been violated before, he knew, when the Dark Lord had attacked it to free the Elder Wand. But it looked perfectly whole and gleaming now.  
  
 _I wish I could feel the same way,_ Draco thought, and drew his wand, concentrating carefully on the image of what he wanted to create before he cast the spell. “ _Corona cordis_ ,” he finally whispered.  
  
The air before him began to thicken and darken, and Draco watched it in some apprehension. The problem with this spell was that it formed a shape taken from the caster’s deepest desires and beliefs. That meant it might make anything. It might  _mean_ anything. It might be ugly.  
  
But in the end, what formed and dropped into Draco’s hands was a single slender band of silver, a crown of the kind that might fit around someone’s forehead. There was one decoration on it, a rippling, abstract line that might as easily be a running wave or the edge of a bird’s wing.  
  
Draco sighed and looked at the tomb. “I wanted to give you something that came from me,” he whispered. “From the soul you tried to save. Thank you.” He leaned forwards and put the crown on the grass in front of the door.  
  
He heard a slight gasp behind him and wheeled around, his wand already raised to defend himself. What he saw was Potter, standing behind him with one foot raised as if he was going to put it down like a deer. His eyes were like a deer’s, too, wide and surprised.  
  
Draco froze, his muscles locked in place. He was going to be  _upset_ if Potter said something, or implied in any way that he was—that he shouldn’t be here. He would shout—  
  
But instead, Potter looked at the crown and the tomb and Draco, and then turned and walked in the opposite direction. It was a brisk walk, like he wanted to get away from something that disgusted him.  
  
 _Or that he’s afraid of,_ Draco thought, blinking after him.  _Or maybe he was just trying to leave me alone._  
  
*  
  
Harry had never heard the spell Malfoy cast before, but he couldn’t stop thinking about it. And that weekend, he went back to Dumbledore’s tomb to cast his own.  
  
He was sure of the incantation, and that he had the power to cast it, and the wand movements. But he still stood there indecisively for a long time before he drew his wand and imitated the movements he’d seen Malfoy making and whispered, “ _Corona cordis_.”  
  
The spell seemed to take a long time to settle. Harry managed to stand still only because he had seen it work for Malfoy. He stared at his hands, and after a long, shifting moment he was holding a thin golden crown in them.  
  
Harry turned it over. There was a griffin in the center of the band, with its front feet clutching a snake. Harry smiled a little and turned to the tomb.  
  
“I still remember what you said about choices,” he whispered. “How I could  _choose_ to be a Gryffindor or a Slytherin, and it really did matter more what my choices were than what the Hat said about me. I suppose I’m still in the middle of making choices.”  
  
As he walked forwards to lay the crown down at the foot of the tomb, he wondered if one of those choices he could make was how to think about Slytherins since the war. He hadn’t thought about them much once the Death Eater trials were over, honestly. He was there and studying, and they were there and studying, and if they had chosen to come back to Hogwarts, they must have really wanted to be there.  
  
But maybe it could be more than that. Indifference wasn’t hate, but it wasn’t friendship, either.  
  
This time, when Harry turned around, Malfoy stood behind him. And it was obvious he’d come to watch. He had nothing in his hands this time, no flower or crown or other gift for Dumbledore.  
  
Harry nodded and walked past him, only to stop when he was  _right_ next to him. Malfoy looked at him, shading his eyes with one hand as if Harry shed a brilliant light that he had to squint past.  
  
“Hello,” Harry said.  
  
Malfoy’s eyes widened. Then he dropped his hand—maybe he’d decided that he didn’t want to see Harry’s face too closely—and whispered back, “Hello.”  
  
That was all. A second after that, Malfoy backed up a step as if he’d run, and Harry thought he had probably pushed things far enough. Friendship couldn’t begin that suddenly, after all. He turned his back and jogged slowly up to the castle.  
  
He had the impression that Malfoy stood and watched him go, though. And even though he didn’t look back over his shoulder, that impression might not be wrong.  
  
*  
  
“I wanted to ask you something about that spell of yours that makes the crown.”  
  
Draco tightened his shoulders and pretended not to breathe for a second as he stood studying Dumbledore’s tomb. But he had asked for this by coming here when he had seen Potter heading in the same direction. If he had really wanted a private visit, then he could have waited until Potter had left.  
  
“All right,” Draco said, when a few more agonizing moments had passed and it felt as if he had spent half his life breathing in tight silence. “So ask.”  
  
“I looked it up,” Potter began, stepping forwards so he was beside Draco. Draco still avoided his eyes, staring at the white marble. “I know the incantation technically translates as ‘Crown of the heart,’ but it’s called the Soul Crown spell, right? It’s supposed to form a sort of image of your soul on the crown.”  
  
Draco breathed out. “That’s right.” Then he ended up inhaling tightness and pressure again, and winced.  
  
“So.” Potter made a restless little motion like he was pawing the ground. “The question is, why did you want to give an image of your soul to Dumbledore?”  
  
Draco turned to face him, ignoring the temptation to tuck his arms down defensively. Potter sounded quiet and calm, honest, as if he had a question that had been bothering him for years.  
  
“He tried to save my soul,” Draco said. “That’s why.”  
  
Potter’s eyes widened in a way that made Draco want to laugh, even though this whole thing wasn’t very funny. “I—I didn’t know you saw it that way,” Potter finally mumbled, shaking his head a little.  
  
“Not many people do. I don’t think even Professor Snape knew, before the end. Or my parents,” Draco had to add.  
  
“Did you try to tell them?”  
  
“Why do you care?”  
  
To Draco’s shock, Potter said, “I’m not sure, but it must be important. I think you’re the only one who visits Dumbledore’s tomb as regularly as I do. And I think—I think you must either have something to forgive him for, the way I thought I did, or you must feel as though you owe him a debt. Anger or loss. One or the other.”  
  
“I don’t have either,” Draco said. “Not really. I want to tell him thanks. What’s that?” he added, finding it difficult to discover the word in the face of the way Potter watched him. “Gratitude? A third option.”  
  
Potter nodded slowly. “Can we meet here?” he asked abruptly. “Like I said, you’re the only other one who visits him. It would be good to talk to you.”  
  
“Talk about  _Dumbledore_?” Draco balked a bit. He thought he had told Potter as much as he felt capable of saying.  
  
Potter stared at him as if he was mental. “No. Other things.”  
  
And maybe Draco was mental, but he nodded, and stood watching the shine of the tomb blindly long after Potter had walked away.


	2. Part Two

Harry was starting to think this had been a mistake. At the very least, he and Malfoy had nothing to talk about.  
  
They sat on the bench in front of the tomb, swinging their legs. Harry had tried to stop swinging his for a while, but they always started again, a vague, nervous habit. Malfoy had decided to sit with his fingers wound together in his lap and his mouth half-open. It made Harry keep looking at him because he thought Malfoy was going to start talking any second.  
  
But he didn’t. And the moments dragged on.  
  
 _It’s not going to mean anything if I don’t seize it,_ Harry decided, and turned around to face Malfoy. Malfoy at once turned to sit in almost the same posture, and Harry smiled. At least he wasn’t the only one who was tired of just sitting here motionless.   
  
“Does it matter to you that Dumbledore didn’t actually save you?” Harry asked. “I mean, he tried, but it wasn’t enough.”  
  
Malfoy lowered his head and stared at his lap for a second. Harry watched him, and tried not to be impatient. Malfoy probably had good reasons for doing what he did. Merlin knew Harry wouldn’t have known how to respond to that question in Malfoy’s place.  
  
“He did more than anyone else did,” Malfoy whispered, and stopped abruptly. Harry just sat there, because he wasn’t sure what had made Malfoy stop like that, and then Malfoy went on, slowly. “I mean—Professor Snape tried. He did.”  
  
“He saved me,” Harry whispered. “He was the one who told me I had to walk out to the Forest and sacrifice myself. I never would have known otherwise.”  
  
Malfoy looked at him, eyes wild and a little haunted. “Sometimes I think he saved me, because he kept me from making more of an effort to kill Dumbledore. If I’d succeeded at that, I would have gone to Azkaban for the rest of my life. But he couldn’t keep me safe among the Death Eaters.”  
  
Harry nodded slowly. “Do you want to talk about that?”  
  
Malfoy turned to face forwards abruptly, as if the shine of the tomb comforted him. He bowed his head. “I don’t think I can,” he whispered. “I don’t think that I—” He stopped, shuddering.  
  
“It’s all right,” Harry said. “There are things I don’t want to talk about, either.” He faced a little away from Malfoy and spent some time looking at the vines crawling over Dumbledore’s tomb. They had small flowers on them now, he thought. Maybe morning glories?  
  
He would have got up and gone closer to examine them, but that would mean leaving Malfoy, and Harry didn’t want to do that. He sat still, and waited for Malfoy to say something if he liked, to take up the silent invitation Harry thought he was leaving open.   
  
Finally, Harry saw something out of the corner of his eye that he didn’t think had been there before. Malfoy’s hand lay on the bench, near him. Malfoy held it rigidly, his knuckles white as he gripped the edge of the seat.  
  
Harry could ignore the invitation the way Malfoy had apparently ignored his. And Harry a year ago would have done that. Tit for tat. He wasn’t going to force his company on someone who didn’t want it or appreciate it.  
  
But now, revenge seemed like a silly idea. Harry silently reached out and took Malfoy’s hand.  
  
Malfoy jerked, and Harry tensed. There was a difference between reaching out for someone who was just sitting there and reaching out for someone who had actually pulled away from him, and he was pretty sure he wouldn’t have the strength for the second one.  
  
But a moment later, Malfoy seemed to relax, all in a rush. He swayed a little. Harry thought he’d have to catch him, but Malfoy caught himself and peered at the tomb again. Harry turned with him.  
  
There was nothing new there, either. But Harry was relaxing himself bit by bit, as though someone had reached up and started to massage oil into his muscles.  
  
He didn’t have to pull away. He didn’t have to say anything. He just had to sit here, holding Malfoy’s hand, and it would be all right.  
  
It really  _was_ going to be all right.  
  
*  
  
Draco debated silently with himself for a long time before he went to Dumbledore’s tomb that Sunday afternoon. He had told Potter he would be there. He didn’t want to break his word.  
  
On the other hand, last time, he had felt more than enough chaotic emotions to last him a month. Some of them had even been stirred up by what Draco knew Potter meant as a kind gesture, taking his hand.  
  
The fact that some of them had later calmed down because Potter was holding his hand was  _not the point_.  
  
Draco no longer thought Potter would turn on him and mock him for being weak. But Draco had to live with the way that his own mind echoed condemnation at him for being weak. No matter what Potter offered, it might not be enough to silence that part of Draco.  
  
In the end, Draco wandered in the direction of the tomb as if on accident, so it would be easy to back away and go in a different direction if Potter wasn’t there. But Potter was, and not sitting in some silent communion with Dumbledore’s departed spirit, either. He sat with his back to the tomb and his gaze fixed on the path Draco would have to take if he passed near, in fact. His smile was bright.  
  
Draco nodded when he met Potter’s eyes, and walked a few steps nearer. It was a mild afternoon, although more grey than sunny. Some bird was singing its head off in the Forbidden Forest.  
  
“This is the quietest time I have, now,” Potter said.  
  
The tone was so conversational that Draco wandered what in the world was going on. But he tried to respond the same way. “Your Housemates are all noisy?”  
  
“They’re Gryffindors, of  _course_ they’re noisy,” Potter said, rolling his eyes comically and drawing a smile from Draco before Draco could help himself. “But it’s more than that. They keep trying to pull me into things and make me feel included, you know?”  
  
“Why is that a bad thing?” Draco could only imagine a world in which Slytherin House was that genuinely friendly towards him at any stage of his life.  
  
“Not bad.” Potter cocked his head at the tomb. “But it’s like this. None of them know about this. They would immediately think I was missing Dumbledore, and they would feel sorry for me and assume I needed to talk about it. Then they would assume they could make me feel better with more Quidditch and more Exploding Snap and more study sessions. You know?”  
  
Draco did. “You want to be left alone to think, sometimes.”  
  
“Yes. Without people immediately assuming I’ll be sorrowful.”  
  
Draco studied Potter sitting upright on the bench before the tomb, watching it with calm eyes. “I don’t think you are.”  
  
“Right now? No, not right now.”   
  
Potter’s voice was deep and slow, and Draco had the impression that Potter had somewhat gone away from him, vanishing into whatever state of mind he used when they sat here. Draco had no idea what that state of mind might be right now, and whether it would be conducive to Potter taking his hand or not. The only thing he knew for sure was that Potter didn’t mind company.   
  
He sat down on the bench, and Potter’s eyes flicked to him once, then went back to the tomb. Draco relaxed. It was nice to know that he could be accepted this way, and that Potter wouldn’t make a big deal of it.  
  
They sat there in silence, at least until Potter sighed and asked, “Do you ever get tired of being around your friends?”  
  
“The ones I have left?” Draco felt as if he was dragging the answer up from a deep, buried place, one filled with the humming peace of the afternoon. Were bees out and tending to the flowers? Draco felt as though they  _should_ be, if they weren’t. “No. But they don’t want to spend a lot of time with me.”  
  
Potter didn’t nod, didn’t do anything to show that he’d heard Draco, but he did reach out and catch Draco’s hand. He held it there, playing with his fingers.   
  
Draco closed his eyes. He hadn’t realized it, but he had only needed that to complete the afternoon. He sat there with his heart going mad in his chest and his body relaxed and breathing easily, and it really did feel as if there were bees out, because he had the taste of honey in his throat, too.  
  
*  
  
Harry flopped down on the bench in front of the tomb and closed his eyes. He knew Malfoy would be here in a few minutes. That wasn’t a problem. The problem was…  
  
The problem was that he felt bitter and resentful and as if he wanted to be sick, and it was no one’s  _fault_.  
  
“That was a good march out of the Great Hall you did, Potter. I barely had time to finish the last forkful before I followed.”  
  
Harry turned blindly towards Malfoy, but didn’t open his eyes. His hands balled into fists at his side and he bowed his head. When he opened his eyes again, Malfoy was sitting beside him on the bench, watching him a little warily.  
  
Harry smiled at him, ignoring the way it felt as if it was etched in acid across his face. “How did I know that you would be here?”  
  
“Because no one else is mad enough to follow you?” Malfoy shrugged, rolled his head a little, and sighed. “And because I wanted to know what Weasley could have said to you to make you storm off like that.”  
  
Harry swallowed. “Nothing.”  
  
“I saw his lips move.”  
  
“I mean, nothing that should have made me react like  _that_.”  
  
“That doesn’t answer the question for me.”  
  
Harry finally sighed, and answered as honestly as he could. “He told me that he was taking Hermione to Hogsmeade tomorrow. That was  _all_.  _Honestly_ all. And he wanted to know who I was going with.”  
  
“Ah. So he caused you jealousy and angst.”  
  
“Yeah,” Harry whispered. This time, he focused on the small vines that braided over Dumbledore’s tomb. Yes, they were morning glories, but some wild roses had joined them. Harry wondered if someone else was coming here and using magic to make them grow. They probably shouldn’t be open yet. “And not even because I want to date Hermione or something.”  
  
“I should hope not.”  
  
Malfoy’s voice was too quick, and Harry knew the way he turned his head was too quick, too. “What?”  
  
“I should hope that you’re not jealous over her, when that would only cause more angst with your best friend, and you’re suffering from enough of that already.”  
  
Harry smiled temperately and turned away. He felt a funny little aching in his chest that was helping to calm him down.  
  
“I’m jealous they have each other,” he told the tomb. “I’m jealous that they get to go with someone and I don’t.”  
  
“If it’s just a partner to Hogsmeade you want, then I have someone in mind for you.”  
  
Harry groaned and leaned forwards until his forehead touched his knees. “Don’t suggest a Slytherin girl, Malfoy. I can imagine how they would bare their teeth at me, and it’s not a smile.”  
  
“It’s a Slytherin. But not a girl.”  
  
Harry looked up quickly again. He felt as though he had a melting warmth in his chest when he met Malfoy’s gaze. Malfoy turned away a second later.   
  
“You?” Harry whispered.  
  
“Don’t turn it into the gift of the century, Potter.” Malfoy was still laboring to make his voice sound cold. “I just want to go to Hogsmeade myself, and I don’t feel like watching my friends walk around with their arms over each other’s shoulders any more than you do.”  
  
Harry relaxed with a smile. “Then come with me.”  
  
Malfoy flushed a little, and Harry knew, without asking, that it mattered to him that Harry had been the one to actually make the offer.   
  
“I will,” he said, and then they sat side-by-side, in a moment filled with rose-scent, and Harry didn’t mind. No, he more than he didn’t mind.  
  
*  
  
Draco snorted as he dropped bonelessly on the bench.  _This_ was where he went for comfort? He probably should have hidden in his room and hoped that no one who’d glimpsed what Potter had done in Hogsmeade would come after him to taunt him.  
  
“Malfoy?”  
  
It was Potter. Of course it was. Draco hid his head more tightly in his hands. “Go away,” he whispered.  
  
“I just want to know if you’re all right.”  
  
That was unexpected enough to make Draco finally drop his hands. “You—you  _kiss_ me in front of Honeydukes and then you ask if I’m all right?” he asked, his voice wavering up into something shrill that made him wince. But not enough to stop. “You didn’t even tell me you were going to do it!”  
  
“I didn’t tell you because I thought you might stop me if I did,” Potter said, and moved up beside him. Draco looked fixedly at the vine full of blue roses dangling down in front of the tomb door (he suspected Longbottom had arranged for the vine to bloom that way, but he didn’t know for sure). Then Potter spoiled Draco’s sulk by stepping in front of him. “And I wanted to kiss you at least once.”  
  
Draco stared at him. Potter stared back, and the strange sensation that it was the other day and Draco was listening to bees humming among the flowers came by.  
  
“I wanted to know what it was like to kiss you,” Potter whispered. “To make you feel as warm as you make me.”  
  
Draco bowed his head. Potter didn’t go away. Draco knew his own courage wouldn’t have held out so long, if he had been the one to kiss Potter in Hogsmeade.  
  
Then again, his own courage wouldn’t have let him kiss Potter in the first place.  
  
“Do you want to talk about it?” Potter asked, as he had about Draco’s time among the Death Eaters.  
  
“I want to—savor it.”  
  
Draco flushed. That wasn’t the right word. But before he could take it back and tell Potter that hadn’t been what he meant at all, he felt a callused hand sliding under his chin. He lifted his head to find Potter smiling at him from a short distance away.  
  
“That’s all right,” Potter whispered. “You can savor it, and in the meantime I can kiss you again.”  
  
This time, he waited long enough to learn whether Draco was going to object to the plan. And Draco had every intention of doing so. He had his mouth open and his indignation poised on the tip of his tongue.  
  
But he rather forgot about it when Potter  _sucked_ on his tongue. It wasn’t fair, Draco thought, somewhere in the hot liquid mass his mind had become, to do that.  
  
*  
  
Harry turned around and smiled as he saw Draco coming towards him. It was the week before their NEWT exams, and Harry had invited Draco to study on the bench in front of Dumbledore’s tomb. The school had finally stopped screaming as loudly about their choice of each other, but Harry still didn’t want to risk trying to study in the library or some other place indoors.  
  
Draco dropped down next to him, and Harry kissed him on the cheek. Then he took out his Transfiguration book.  
  
Draco groaned. Harry glanced at him curiously. While Draco wasn’t as dedicated a student as Hermione, he still didn’t pretend to gag at the thought of studying the way Ron did.  
  
“I thought we weren’t going to  _really_ study,” Draco said, and folded his arms and pouted at him. “I thought you invited me here for something else.”  
  
“What would that be?” Harry kept his voice casual, while he felt his muscles bunch the way they only used to do on a broom.  
  
“It starts with a k.”  
  
Harry laughed, charmed as always by Draco’s refusal to just say the word outright, and turned around. Draco was sitting beside him on the bench, biting his lip, his eyes eager with all the words he couldn’t say. Harry slid his hands around Draco’s cheeks, delighting even in the way his  _jaw_ worked, and the slopes of his facial bones, and the way his eyes shone.  
  
 _His jaw, for Merlin’s sake. I must—_  
  
The realization was bright as a comet, but not as startling.  
  
 _I’m in love with him. I must be._  
  
*  
  
Draco frowned at Harry, wondering why in the world he was hesitating. Did Draco have carrots in his teeth from lunch? Or perhaps his breath smelled awful.  
  
But Harry didn’t have that kind of expression on his face. If anything, Harry’s expression of ringing elation was one Draco would have expected to see from someone who—  
  
Draco lost his breath.  
  
 _Someone who’s in love with me._  
  
And there was no desolate echo from the bottom of Draco’s soul about how that was impossible, and he would have to let Harry down gently, because he wasn’t in love back. There was only something strong and sincere and rising to shine like the white wall of Dumbledore’s tomb.  
  
“I do love you,” Draco said, and only when he heard the strange echo in the air did he realize Harry had said it at exactly the same time.  
  
Draco blinked and shook his head. Then he asked, “Did that just happen?”  
  
“It did,” Harry whispered. His hands were still there, and his eyes, and his smile. Draco could verify that  _his_ breath didn’t smell bad, at least. “You know, Dumbledore told me once that death was the next great adventure.”  
  
“You think he was wrong?” Draco asked it for the sake of something to say, because with his mouth still dry and his heart still rebounding, he couldn’t pay much attention to the direction it seemed Harry suddenly wanted to take the conversation in.  
  
“I think I missed something he was implying. Life is a great adventure first.”  
  
And then Harry kissed him, and Draco kissed him back, and he felt as though he could leap off the bench and soar over the trees even though he was only sitting here and holding Harry’s wrist in his hand and Harry’s tongue in his mouth, and the blue roses hanging over the door of the tomb nodded in time with the chuckling breeze.  
  
 **The End.**


End file.
